


Indulgences

by spookywriter



Category: The Terror (2018 TV series), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Snowball Fights, but like only a little, but with a little angst, hey the terror fandom what's up, i have no idea how to use tags on this site, i'm just trying to distract myself from the fact that all of the Boat Boys are going to die :(, impending sense of doom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-22 02:47:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14299110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookywriter/pseuds/spookywriter
Summary: The men have a snowball fight. A series of drabbles from the perspectives of different characters set somewhere between episodes 1 and 2, back when things were still relatively-but-not-really-all-that happy.





	1. James Fitzjames

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all I am full of love for The Terror and am suffering from lack of fic so... here we are I guess. I've never written fic before so please be kind haha. Thanks for reading xx

For the first time in months—if ever—Commander James Fitzjames is greeted by the sound of laughter when arrives on Erebus’s deck. He squints, wondering is he is still, against all odds, dreaming. Or possibly hallucinating. But no—scattered throughout the half-mile of snow and ice between the two ships are men, running and shouting, most of them having shed their heavy slops despite the biting cold.

  
He grabs the nearest man by the shoulder. One of the marines, Pilkington.

  
“What is…” he gestures vaguely with a mittened hand, “all this?”

  
“They’re having a snowball fight, sir,” Pilkington says mildly. “Terrors against Erebuses, I believe. Ought I stop them?”

  
Bewildered, James observes the scene before him. The men are red-cheeked, smiling, tackling and shoving one another into the snow—the very antithesis of naval discipline. If his eyes are to be trusted (and at the moment he is not entirely sure) he sees Thomas Blanky throw a snowball at Mr. Wall, Erebus’s cook. His aim is excellent, he notes. If only the men could shoot game as well as they could pelt one another with snowballs.

  
But despite his misgivings about the chaos before him, it does cheer him to see them energized after many long months on the ice.

  
“No,” he says at last. “Leave them be, for now.”

  
James spots Sir John at the prow, paying no heed to his men. He peers through his spyglass at the frozen sea beyond them, perhaps hoping to spot some sign of a thaw. It should only be a matter of time, and when they send out the sledge parties the following week they will know for sure. This thought cheers him doubly.

  
“Sir John,” he says, by way of greeting, as he makes his way forward to stand beside his captain. From this position, the wind blows directly in his face. His eyes water, tears freezing within the minute. Only one of the many irritations he has grown accustomed to.

  
“Good morning, James.”

  
“The men on the ice,” he says helplessly.

  
“To my knowledge, all the men are hard at work aboard their respective ships,” says Sir John, lowering his spyglass and fixing James with a significant look.

  
James presses his lips together, not quite scowling. “I see.”

  
Sir John raises his eyebrows. “We must allow the men some indulgences, James. Especially on a difficult journey such as this.”

  
The officer in him wants to protest, but James only nods. He has not failed to notice the faltering morale in the past weeks. The barren landscape and the shortening days have had an effect on all of the men, himself included. But today the sun is bright overhead, and the preternatural silence around them has been broken by laughter and good-natured taunts.

  
Today there is joy, and only now does James realize this is something he has not felt since that grim day in September when they first became entrapped in the bleak and frozen sea. And in the days or weeks to come—as soon as the long-awaited thaw arrives—there will be hope. Of this he is certain.


	2. Henry Goodsir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chapter about Dr. Henry Goodsir, the goodest of sirs.

Henry Goodsir is standing within the shadow of Erebus, anxiously peering through his snow-flecked spectacles, face flushed with cold and excitement. A few other officers stand in clusters as varying intervals along the side of the ship, their expressions ranging from enthusiasm to indulgent amusement. Maybe they, like him, wish to feed off of the excitement before them while still maintaining the dignity of their rank. Henry has spent the last year discovering the extent of his ignorance about naval life, but he is relatively sure that partaking in a snowball fight is not befitting of a lieutenant.

He is rubbing together his numb hands, wanting to stay out just a little longer, when he becomes aware that a white projectile is headed directly for his face.

“Watch out, doctor!” cries one of the officers to his left.

Instinctively, Henry ducks, and a snowball pelts the side of Erebus, mere inches above his head, with a wet smack. He blinks owlishly. For a moment, his face is as pale as the snow that surrounds him, and then he cannot help but grin.

The man—Lieutenant Gore, he realizes, now that he can see his face—claps him on the shoulder. “You very nearly took a blow, Dr. Goodsir. I commend your reflexes.”

“Technically I am not a doctor,” Henry begins, faltering, “but a surgeon. An anatomist, really…”

Gore lets out a soft grunt as he is hit squarely in the chest, and Henry trails off, thankful for the distraction from his own flustered state.

“Apologies, Lieutenant,” calls Gore’s attacker, anxious and white-faced. “I wasn’t aimin’ for you so much as—”

Before he can finish, Henry sees, out of the corner of his eye, Gore drawing back his arm. Gore’s target blinks as a ball of snow explodes on his face, knocking his cap askew.

Chuckling, Gore hands Henry a fistful of packed snow. “Help me defend my honor, will you? If, after a long and successful naval career, I am bested by a group of frostbitten seamen, I will never be able to face the wardroom.”

Henry finds himself pulled into the middle of the fray, pummeled left and right by balls of hard-packed snow. He lets out a surprised laugh as Gore all but tackles one of his fellow lieutenants with a battle cry worthy of any military man.

He is surprised by how quickly his is embraced by his shipmates’ comradery. He wonders to think that all this time he has never felt like one of the men—always felt distanced from them—when all it would require to break down these barriers was to launch a snowball at another man’s face.

But it is over within fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. One of the ship’s boys falls hard on his wrist, and Henry’s duty as a not-technically-a-doctor compels him to escort the boy back to Erebus. As soon as Captain Crozier is made aware of the injury, Henry knows his clemency will turn to indignation, and these fleeting hours in the sun will be over almost as soon as they began. So he tries to be discreet.

Still, Henry is delighted when he returns to the cramped sick bay to spot, in the narrow mirror, a bruise blooming on his cheekbone, probably from an elbow in the cheek or a particularly forceful impact with a snowball. He is sure he will not be the only of his crewmates to bear a similar mark. Smiling to himself as he tends to the boy’s wrist, Henry decides that he will wear it as a badge of honor.


	3. Thomas Evans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starring the ship's boys: Thomas Evans, George Chambers, and Robert Golding. Written in loving memory of David Young, RIP to my fave character in episode one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I foreshadow some minor events that might be spoilers if you haven't read the book. I don't see it being a problem, but letting you know just in case!  
> Also, note that there's use of an outdated/offensive term for the Inuit, sticking to the terminology used in the show/book.

There are only three of them now—three ship’s boys—after what happened to David last September. It doesn’t even matter that they’re on different ships: George Chambers and Robert Golding on Erebus and Thomas Evans on Terror. They stick together. You see, the problem with being friends with the other seaman is that they get the idea in their heads that because they technically outrank you, they can order you around like they’re a lieutenant. Thomas thinks it's better to find allies your own age.

They’ve been making the half-mile journey between the two ships once, twice a week for the past few months now, becoming fast friends over the long winter. Thomas doesn’t mind the walk as much as he did at first, but he still doesn’t like it. The dips and swells of the ice form eerie shadows, and when the northern lights appear, the landscape is illuminated in such a way that it looks for the life of him like Hell on Earth.

But today, there’s no trekking back and forth between ships, not with the snowball fight. They’ve formed their own little alliance; allegiance to their crews be damned. Besides, there’s no trusting the seamen and petty officers. More than once one or more of them have decided to turn coat and join forces against the ship’s boys for the fun of it. The injustice of it smarts like a slap on the face, but it only strengthens Thomas’s resolve to rise through the ranks as quickly as possible. Nobody, he reasons, would dare to betray Captain Crozier that way.

“We ought to make a fort,” says Thomas. He sits perched atop of one of the pressure ridges (the result of nearly twenty minutes of effort; he must be covered with bruises from the ascent), anxious-eyed George to his left and sharp-faced Robert to his right. A pile of snowballs sits beside him in case they’re invaded. “Stack blocks of ice like the Eskimaux.”

Robert scoffs. “By the time we're halfway done, the ice will have thawed and we'll have found the ruddy Northwest Passage.”

Thomas shrugs, frowning, but he doesn’t have a good response.

“Do you think we'll see them?” asks George.

“What?” asks Thomas.

“The Eskimaux.”

“If they don't know we're here yet, they ain't going to find us,” says Robert. He grabs a handful of snow and begins packing it tight between his palms, then rubs the surface smooth with a mittened hand. His bony elbows jut out on either side as he works, jabbing into Thomas's side.

“I’d like to see ‘em. With their dog sleds and all.”

“We could make a dog sled ourselves,” jokes Thomas. “Hitch Neptune to it.”

Robert makes a face, tossing his newly made snowball up in the air. He fails to catch it, and swears under his breath. “He’d never pull. Ruddy useless mutt.”

They don't say anything for a while after that, just listen to the wind. He'd never admit it, but the sound still sets Thomas on edge. It reminds him of how alien this frozen world is. How far it is from home.

“Do you think we're going to make it?” George asks. He's nervously picking at the dead skin on his bottom lip.

“Don’t do that,” says Thomas, nudging his friend with his shoulder, “you’ll bleed."

It’s Robert who answers the question. “We’ll make it, alright. It’s just a matter of being willing to do what it takes to survive.”

Thomas expects Robert to be smirking, teasing George in the sly, almost mean-spirited way he sometimes does. Instead, his face is hard and cold. Something about it makes Thomas shudder, and he looks away.

“Shut your mouth, Robert. The ice’ll melt, and then we’ll go home and see our families again." He turns to grin at George. "Maybe next time we sail together, we’ll both be officers."

George opens his mouth to say something, but Thomas never finds out what he meant to say, because the next thing they know they’re being raided by group of seamen, calling up taunts at them and pelting them with snowballs.

The silence and the stillness is broken, and Thomas soon forgets the ice he saw in Robert Golding’s eyes.


	4. James Fitzjames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fitzjames and Crozier make a bet.

Many of the officers have clustered in the relative shelter of Erebus’s lee, where her broad wooden sides protect them from the worst of the wind and falling snow. James is surprised to spot Francis Crozier among them, standing some distance apart. 

“If Sir John asks,” says Crozier as James approaches him, his low voice barely audible below the drone of the wind, “I did not approve of this.” 

James raises one half-frozen eyebrow. “Nor did you forbid it.”

If James did not know better, he would claim to have heard a smile in Captain Crozier’s voice. “No. No, I did not.”

There is an uproar from the men as one of the Terrors—Hickey, he thinks, the red-haired caulker’s mate—mounts the broad shoulders of Magnus Manson, Terror’s resident giant, hailing down snowballs from his lofty peak. James watches with a glimmer of amusement as the duo are pelted with snow by a group of Erebuses. At last, Manson falls, and James is reminded of the story of David and Goliath. 

Beside him, Crozier merely shakes his head, expression unreadable. James suspects that Francis feels the full array of human emotions, but the only ones he has ever seen manifest on his face are stubbornness and irritation. Sir John reprimands him to be charitable, and he does try, although it’s about as hopeless as attempting to tunnel through a glacier with a salad fork. 

“Who do you suppose is winning?” asks James, in the spirit of charity—not fully expecting an answer.

The spark of humor in Crozier’s voice surprises him. “The Terrors, of course.”

James glances at the captain out of the corner of his eye. “I would put a month’s wages on the Erebuses, myself.”

“Then I’d wager the same on my men.”

“I never would have supposed you were a betting man,” says James. He finds himself willing Crozier to smile, for the love of God. If only James had the power to thaw both the Arctic around him and whatever icy cage entrapped Crozier’s sense of joy. Surely the man was not born with an air of melancholy and a whiskey bottle in one hand. 

Obviously, he fails, and he blames the manic energy in the air for his even trying.

“Only as far as my ship and crew are concerned,” says Francis. “Like any captain.”

James grins, wincing at the way his smile pulls at his raw and wind-chapped lips. “I suppose we have a deal then, Francis.”

He is, of course, well aware of Crozier’s pessimistic predictions. Terror’s captain believes, by all accounts, that none of them will make it home without taking some sort of extraordinary measures. That the ice will not thaw—that, even if it does, one or both ships will be crushed by the pack ice before then—and that hunger or disease or mutiny will pick them off one by one. Francis Crozier may be a pessimist, but James is not. He will return home to receive his pay and to collect Francis’s bet—he places his wager on this as much as anything else, and he hopes Crozier does the same. 

“I suppose we do,” says Crozier at last.


End file.
